The Secret Ingredient: A Broadside Portfolio (Vol. 3 No. 7)

A little of this, a dash of that—food brings us all together. Some dishes carry the weight of a culture; others are, in and of themselves, family legacies, passed from one generation to the next. We prepare meals for our loved ones, deliver casseroles in times of mourning, adorn cakes for celebrations. By cooking, we sustain ourselves, our families, and our heritage. Yet cooking can be daunting as well as uplifting, possessing a language all its own full of obscure ingredients and new techniques. In response, a trend of viral videos, food “hacks,” and shows of competitive cooking and eating has arisen to make sense of it all. Still, we believe in the endurance of written recipes as records of the foods we have enjoyed and shared. They are the love letters of the culinary world, preserving the euphoria of hearty laughs over hearty meals, even long after the last leftovers are gone. So we share our own recipes, passed from our family to yours, knowing as any good cook does, that the secret ingredient is always love.